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53951683139 · 2 years ago

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I wrote a add in paragraph for the great Gatsby for my English class. Can people pls give me constructive criticism? I would first like to say that I have never considered myself a good writer so try to be nice if u can?

idk i googled Tribune 1922 to try and find ads and found this

I tried to add as much unnecessary description as possible

Also I’m pretending his train was at about 6-10 (sunrise) instead of 4

I think I did a decent job if I say so myself

Start of Chapter 3:

I wandered through Pennsylvania Station, the rising sun seemed as though it was electric bolts coursing through my eyes and into the back of my head. I slunk away from those glass panels, made into a prison by the wrought iron bars, forcing a weightless fragility. Should some street rat or one of the suited wall street men through a rock upwards the glass might come shattering down, but those wrought iron bars would continue to hold the thousands of travelers prisoner in its inflexible arms. I shook my head to knock myself back into active consciousness and looked with utter confusion at the Tribune sprawled across my lap; J.C.Penny promised new dress ginghams, perfect for summer, the American Bank inquired about my money’s safety, Ford’s one-ton truck was on sale for only $540, not for long though. I turned the page to a woman pointing directly at, her ink eyes staring through my soul, “J’Accuse” the words screamed in bold font, causing a shiver starting at my feet and traveling though every inch of my body. I threw the newspaper at my feet, had it suddenly lit on fire, prompting a sheepish girl with round spectacles that overwhelmed her unassuming face to stare audaciously at me with pointed blue eyes, while a crowd only looked sideways at me, pretending they did not notice. Embarrassed, I slowly reached to my feet to retrieve the newspaper, like a guilty child who knew his parents were waiting for him to return from boarding school with his report card preceding him. Opening it slowly, cautious as though the woman might jump out at me with her pointed nail like a sword, instead I half-laughed seeing that it was a movie, made by Abel Gance, promising the greatest climax in celluloid. The sheer absurdity of my abject terror to a movie advert was increased relizing this woman had nothing for her to j’accuse me of. I rested my shoulders back on the unforgiving iron of the bench to try to ease the heartbeat trying to break out of my head. As I let my brain wander through the open meadows of my mind, I smiled faintly. Last night still felt blurry and far away, like some distant childhood activity where details flow in and out on the waves of memory, but it had an air of pleasentness that I could not place. I was starting to piece the events together; Tom hit Myrtle, her blood flowed across that tapestry of faux luxury, I left the room about then, I think, McKee was in the elevator too and we made plans for lunch…

With the suddenness of a crash I couldn’t breath, everything narrowed into a cramped space as I fell to my knees choking for breath, each one feeling more ragged and desperate than the last. The world swirled around me into one of those new abstract paintings that disfigure reality. My throat clamored unsuccessfully for air, like Tantalus reaching for the taunting fruit so close to his head. My eyes wer pushed through a dark tunnel, fleeing from the disfigured world. Every breath took tremendous effort to gasp, I was drowning in an invisible sea, and the water was filling my lungs as I gasped and fought for each short hesitant breath.

As the world recentered and my breath regained some semblance of consistency, I could see a crowd gathering around me, murmuring incessantly, thousands of morbidly curious voices pushing closer, shoving me back into that disorienting painting. The burning taste of some stong whiskey from the sheepish girl’s small metal flask brought me close enough to reality to leave the crowds and head into the chill morning outside the train station. I was still gasping, struggling to maintain my lungs, grasping anything that’d hold me as though I was dangling over Niagara falls, every breath taking all of my focus to control and not slip back into that suffocating sensation. That memory, it had to be fake, some drunken invention. But just the thought immediately worsened my state so I repressed it until acknowledge it properly.

Once I had made it back to my humble house, like a molehill in the presence of great mountains, my thoughts still stuck in a thick, disorienting, mist. I collapsed onto the bed with a Gin Rickey in my hand and fierce determination to regain my composure completely. I let my mind wander back to that drunken night, there they were, all of them; Tom and Myrtle, Catherine, McKee… McKee. He stuck in my mind like “On The Alamo” and sang that one line over and over, and in all my dreams it seems I'll go where the moon swings low. I closed my eyes allowing the drunken remembrances to march back, like war weary soldiers, different men then those who marched on the battlefield with bloodthirst glory in their eyes; Tom and Myrtle, the blood, the elevator, then… It couldn’t be, not even in my drunkenness, I wouldn’t of, couldn’t of… But even with the intense shame, it was intensely alluring to recall… I don’t know what I’m saying, of course it was an awful thing to do, but… No that ridiculous, I’m stronger than the musings of a diseased mind. I have never given in to those perverted thoughts, those twisted daydreams that torture my closed eyes in moments of weakness.

Firmly I scolded myself and drifted into a restless slumber till a sharp knock, like a crack of thunder bombarded my door, reverberating off every room till it raced in and out of my ears. Like a somnambulist, I migrated slowly towards my door, grasping at couches to prop up my half-dead figure. At the door, a frighteningly correct butler, middle aged with a sturdy frame wrapped in a suit that had never seen a wrinkle in its life, looked straight at me in unspoken disapproval. My clothes from last night had embedded into my flesh and were peeling out as I struggled to stand upright, propping myself up with the doorframe.

“Mr. Carraway,” the butler said in a respectful tone that was painfully discordant, “Mr. Gatsby wishes for me to deliver this invitation.” I stuttered out a half thanks, lost in a haze, a deep fog shrouding my thoughts. The butler handed me the note, putting it in between my fingers to ensure it stayed in my hand and did not flutter to the ground as he removed his hand. He nodded in that almost sarcastically polite way and turned to leave me staring at the innovation from my elusive neighbor.

Yeah that’s it. Idk not awful I hope

#great gatsby #nick carraway #Mr. McKee #francis scott fitzgerald #f. scott fitzgerald #writting #help #please don’t be mean

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